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Capcom
Capcom Co., Ltd., or Capcom, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Dragon Fighter, Mega Man, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Ace Attorney, and Monster Hunter, as well as games based on the Disney animated properties. Originally established in 1979, it has since become an international enterprise with subsidiaries in North America, Europe, and East Asia. History Capcom's first predecessor, I.R.M Corporation, was founded on May 30, 1979 by Kenzo Tsujimoto. Tsujimoto named I.R.M after his other company Irem Corporation which he founded earlier in 1974 and remained with until 1983. The original companies that spawned Capcom's Japanese branch were I.R.M as well as its subsidiary Japan Capsule Computers Co., Ltd., both of which were devoted to the manufacturing and distribution of electronic game machines. The two companies underwent a name change to Sambi Co., Ltd. in September 1981, while Capcom Co., Ltd. was first established on June 11, 1983 by Kenzo Tsujimoto, for the purpose of taking over the internal sales department. In January 1989, the old affiliate company Capcom Co., Ltd. merged with Sambi Co., Ltd., resulting in the current Japanese branch. The name Capcom is a clipped compound of "Capsule Computers", a term coined by the company to describe the arcade machines it solely manufactured in its early years, designed to set themselves apart from personal computers that were becoming widespread at that time. The word capsule alludes to how Capcom likened its game software to "a capsule packed to the brim with gaming fun", as well as to the company's desire to protect its intellectual property with a hard outer shell, preventing illegal copies and inferior imitations. While Capcom's first product was the coin-operated Little League from July 1983, its first real video game, the arcade title Vulgus, was released in May 1984. Beginning with a Nintendo Entertainment System port of 1942 published in December 1985, the company started to venture into the market of home console video games, which became its main business segment a few years later. Its division Capcom USA even had a brief stint in the late 1980s as a video game publisher for the Commodore 64 and IBM PC DOS computers although the development of these arcade ports were handled by other companies. Since then, Capcom has created 15 multi-million-selling game series, the most successful of which is Resident Evil. Capcom has been noted as the last major publisher to be committed to 2D games, though this was not entirely by choice. The company's continued commitment to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as its platform of choice caused them to lag behind other leading publishers in developing 3D-capable arcade boards. In addition, the 2D animated cartoon-style graphics seen in games such as Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and X-Men: Children of the Atom proved immensely popular, leading Capcom to adopt it as a signature style and use it in more games. In 1994, Capcom adapted its Dragon Fighter series of fighting games into a film of the same name. While commercially successful, the production received almost universal criticism. A 2002 adaptation of its Resident Evil series faced similar criticism but was also successful in theaters. The company sees films as a way to build sales for its video games. Capcom partnered with Nyu Media in 2011 to publish and distribute the Japanese independent (dōjin soft) games that Nyu localized into the English language. The company works with the Polish localization company QLOC to port Capcom's games to other platforms, notably examples are DmC: Devil May Cry's PC version and its PlayStation 4/Xbox One remasters, Dragon's Dogma's PC version released in January 2016, and '''Dead Rising's version on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC released on September 13, 2016. In August 27, 2014, Capcom filed a patent infringement lawsuit against '''Koei Tecmo Games at the Osaka District Court for 980 million yen in damage. Capcom claimed Koei Tecmo Games infringed a patent it obtained in 2002 regarding play feature of the video games.